Human Rights In Cinema Competition

A SEASON IN FRANCE
UNE SAISON EN FRANCE

• Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
• FRANCE / 2017 / DCP / Colour / 97´ / French; Turkish, English s.t.

• Screenplay: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
• Director of Photography: Mathieu Giombini
• Editing: Jean François Elie
• Music: Wasis Diop
• Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Eriq Ebouaney, Bibi Tanga, Ibrahim Burama Darboe
• Producer: Florence Stern
• Production Co.: Pili Films
• World Sales: MK2
• Turkish Rights: Filmartı

Chad-born director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun takes a realistic and compassionate look at the lives of illegal immigrants struggling in the lower depths of Paris. A schoolteacher named Abbas who arrived from war-torn Central African Republic now works selling vegetables, while his philosophy professor brother Etienne works as a security guard. Living with the fear of getting caught by the police any minute and be deported, the brothers will learn that the best they could do is to maintain dignity as they try to build a new life based on fear and uncertainty. Haroun describes A Season in France as an effort to “tell the story of the invisible faces” of immigrants who arrive in Europe, and shows us the face of the City of Lights that we have never seen.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.